#anyway this is exactly the deal with Star Wars as well

[chocolatepot]

Yep. Fandom typically adores the pathetic guy who's trying to be tough but has no idea what he's doing and has a soft heart - "oh he's an idiot I love him etc." - but everyone is very quiet about Maximus.

And this is the pattern that I see in so many fandoms: it's not that people who would have shipped two protagonists if they'd both been white switch to protagonist/(villain/antagonist/antihero who hurt them), it's that the protagonist/protagonist shippers simply don't show up.

Like ... there will always be people into the edgier ship. For some it's the norm across all of their fandoms. They want to see the hate turn into lust/love, they want to see the grumpy one get soft or the soft one get grumpy, or they want to see something really dark. That's just their taste.

But in most fandoms, this balanced out by a healthy and active protagonist/protagonist faction. While some fans actively prefer non-canon ships and celebrate this fact, the ships that seem more obviously to-be-canon or at least to be based on strong friendship typically do have big fandoms, if not the biggest fandoms. What's really notable is that when the ship that has the explicit UST/chemistry/signposting contains one character of color, this faction often just ... doesn't develop. The people who would ship them focus on a generally positive side character, or they don't ship anyone, or they don't even get invested enough to care about the show at all.

Can we talk about the fact that so many people on this app would rather ship Lucy with the guy who CUT HER FINGER OFF or HER COUSIN 🤮 rather than shipping her with her canonical black love intrest. Yikes, this happens so often and it’s so concerning.

[tintinwrites]

minor feelings | Din Djarin x Reader

A/N: I missed Din! I hope you guys enjoy!

Rating: 18+ for sexual themes

Warning: This is Fem!reader so she/her pronouns are used in the fic. This story deals with graphic sexual discussions as well as sexual harassment. Quite a few naughty words. Some light violence, but nothing really atypical for Star Wars.

Word Count: 2,017, apparently!!

Summary: You and Mando are hunting down a quarry, who you painfully discover is someone from your past.

You looked around the dimly lit cantina in search of Mando’s newest quarry, listening to the sounds of cups hitting tables and a dozen conversations. You’d hear bits and pieces of some of them; two men were talking about a project at their work, a couple in the corner wasn’t being subtle about exactly what they were going to do to each other once they were home alone.

You’d been traveling with Mando for a few months now, hopping between a glorified babysitter and a bounty hunting assistant. You found the baby a little easier to deal with at first, but the more you helped him with quarries and the more he trusted you with more responsibilities, the more you started to like that too.

And you were getting pretty damn good at it if you did say so yourself.

There was just one slight problem.

“You know, this might be easier if I knew who I was looking for.” You smiled over the alcoholic drink you were sipping, trying not to laugh at his forgetfulness and your stupidity.

There was a drink in front of Mando too, obviously untouched given his rules regarding his helmet. The waitress had been so pushy, he’d given in and grunted out an obviously very enthusiastic ‘fine’ to get her to leave him alone. “Oh. Right.”

He slid the puck over to you and you grabbed it before it could fall off the table, pressing the button to pull up the hologram that would show you the face and details of the quarry it was tracking. When you saw the familiar face spinning around, showing you every unforgettable angle, the puck slipped from your hand and clattered to the table.

“What’s wrong?” Mando asked, helmet tilting up to follow your movements as you quickly moved out of the booth and backed away.

“I…I just remembered something. Be right back.” You bolted out of the cantina before he could say anything, pausing when you saw all the people that were loitering outside of the entrance.

You could feel your chest constricting and tears were blurring your vision, so you ducked into the alleyway between the cantina and another building to gather yourself privately. You pressed your back against the wall and closed your eyes, willing yourself to calm down.

You knew this quarry. Years ago, years before Mando, when you were just some nobody on a nowhere planet, just going about your daily life like anybody else.

He was handsome and charming, he made you laugh, he knew just where to touch you, and it was all so perfect. All his promises to get you off that planet, to take you to see the worlds and the stars you’d never seen before, made your fantasies of being more seem like they were within your reach.

But those promises were made while his hands were wandering over your body. Love was only whispered in your ear when he was inside you. And when you found him using those same words on another dreamy-eyed woman, you realized everything was a lie.

He wasn’t going to take you to see other planets or to have these grand adventures; no, he just wanted to soften you up, to make you pliable under his touch so he could take what he desired.

He was angry when you told him you didn’t want to see him again. Angry. As if he hadn’t lied to you and betrayed you, as if you were the one who was going around lying to people until they fucked you. You should have been angry, but instead you were calm in your hurt and busied yourself with anything that didn’t let you think of him.

He left your planet anyway. Whether to go on those promised adventures or because all the other people he fucked finally figured him out, you didn’t know.

“Well, I picked a good time to take a leak, huh?” That voice was like nails on a chalkboard to you now and you tensed against the wall, refusing to open your eyes.

But you heard footsteps approaching and stopping in front of you, and you would much rather watch his every move and pretend he didn’t affect you. You slowly opened your eyes to confirm it was him, standing with his usual cocky flair, an arrogant smirk on his lips.

His eyes trailed over your form, not even trying to be subtle. “You’ve held up.”

You weren’t going to let him get to you, damn it. You set your shoulders and stood up a little straighter, leveling your gaze. “People don’t tend to fall apart after three years, Zandraul.”

���Ooh, you’ve built a little fire. I remember when you were that doe-eyed little girl, desperate to keep people happy with you.”

It occurred to you that you didn’t need to stand there and listen to him act like a dick, but he grabbed your arm the moment you turned to leave. “Get your hand off me or you’re gonna fucking lose it.”

He released you and raised his hands in a false show of surrender, laughing softly. “Oh, come on, didn’t you miss me? What do you say I fuck you again for old time’s sake? You might be acting all tough, but I bet there’s a part of you that still likes to please people.”

The call of your name at the end of the alleyway stopped your response, and you were embarrassed at the relief that flooded you when you saw Mando. He seemed to survey the situation before he decided to approach, his hand near his blaster. You wanted to stand your ground and hold your own, but Zandraul’s presence brought up too many mind-clouding feelings for you to be especially brave.

“Oh, so that’s how you got away from that skughole. A tin can.”

“You know him?” There was a lilt to Mando’s tone that told him he’d figured out your reaction to the hologram now.

You opened your mouth to tell him yes, but could only squeak as Zandraul wrapped an arm around you and yanked you into his side. “We were good friends back home, weren’t we, sweetheart? Good friends.”

Fresh tears swam in your eyes and you tried to meet Mando’s through his visor, hoping he could understand by just a look that you didn’t want to be near this man. He moved closer and reached out a hand to try and guide you away.

“We were just leaving.” His gloved fingers nearly touched your arm before Zandraul yanked you out of his reach, stepping back. His hand hovered in the air for a moment before it lowered, fingers curling near his blaster again.

“I didn’t even know Mandalorians could fuck, but I guess anyone would give up celibacy for a night with you.” Zandraul squeezed you meaningfully. “No wonder he’s gotten you this far. You showed a virgin the time of his life.”

You didn’t know whether or not Mandalorians did take a vow of celibacy, but somehow you highly doubted it. Regardless, your body did heat up at his degrading words and at the thought of being with Mando in that way. Of course you’d think of it from time to time. But that was just it because you were almost certain he didn’t view you that way.

“Let me go, Zandraul, we don’t need to do this.” You shoved at his side, letting out a sigh of relief when he actually let you break away.

“Sure, sure, leave me again. But I just wanna give your new guy a few pointers.” He approached Mando with a saunter; they were the same height, eyes level.

“I’m not interested in any pointers.” Mando gestured for you to come to him, but Zandraul quickly blocked his view of you to grab his attention again.

“She has this spot on her neck that drives her crazy, if you ever take off your helmet.” He glanced back at you for a moment, basking in your humiliation as he told your companion who you admired such intimate details about you. “And if you tell her you’ll take her to see the entire galaxy? You don’t even have to follow through for her to suck your cock.”

In a flash, Mando’s hands were fisted in the front of Zandraul’s shirt and he was slamming the other man against the cantina wall, letting his head bounce off of it. It dazed the other man enough for Mando to throw him to the ground, before he glanced at you. “Go back to the ship and check on Grogu.”

There was no concern for Grogu, you knew he was safe, but Mando’s tone told you that he was about to do something you didn’t want to witness. You opened and closed your mouth a few times, shock coursing through you as he loomed over Zandraul.

“Go now.”

You finally got your legs to move and you walked back to the ship in almost a daze, finding that the baby was safely asleep. You sank down onto the cot just to breathe for a moment, shuddering as you thought of Zandraul’s hands on you and the way he spoke about you.

You supposed Mando had taken the opportunity to secure the quarry while he was busy talking about you. You struggled to be proud of your involvement this time.

After a few moments, boots could be heard against the metal floor of the ship and you anxiously stood, ready to defend yourself.

Then came Mando with an unconscious Zandraul over his shoulder, briefly disappearing so he could stick him in a slab of carbonite. When he reappeared, he simply walked past you and headed into the cockpit. You didn’t know what to say or if you should stop him.

So you just sat there for a little while until you had calmed down enough to fully think straight, wondering if you should thank Mando even if what he did was just a means to an end. You warred with yourself and ultimately decided that you should thank him anyway.

Zandraul was right. You did still like to please people.

You climbed the ladder to the cockpit and stood there in silence for a few moments as you thought of what to say, staring at the back of his helmet. “—Mando?”

He turned his head just enough to let you know he was listening.

“I know you just needed to bag him because he was a quarry, but thank you. I don’t need to tell you the details for you to know that we have a…history.” There was no response and you waited for one, but turned to go when a couple moments of silence passed.

“If I was worried about him being the quarry, I would’ve just cuffed him.”

Your head lifted and you felt new tears in your eyes as his words sank in. Different tears. Almost happy. The kind that made something inside your chest bloom. He attacked Zandraul for you, not for the credits he’d receive in return for his delivery.

You turned and rushed to his side, but realized you didn’t know what your plan was. What were you going to do? Part of you wanted to kiss him, but his helmet was in the way and you didn’t know how he would even feel about a kiss. Another part of you wanted to hug him, but it would be awkward with him seated.

Your hand fell to his arm and, as his helmet tilted to look at it, you placed a kiss where you thought his cheek might be. The metal was cool against your lips, nothing like kissing someone’s face, but the gesture remained the same.

He just gazed at you with eyes you couldn’t see, silently, not showing any signs that he appreciated it but not berating you either.

You smiled softly. “Thank you, Mando.”

As you walked back to the ladder to leave him be and not bother him anymore, you missed his hand raising to delicately touch where your lips had been.

[smeraldo-heart]

Young Cal absolutely KILLS me.

He was with Master Tapal when the older spoke to Anakin, shortly after the latter became a Knight.

He is described as precocious 😭 because of how he rarely struggled, but he was also kind and generous. He couldn’t deal with failure and that was the whole reason why he was assigned to Master Tapal.

He froze when he saw a droideka out on the battlefield and his Master had to save him.

He was close with his clones, high-fived them and even had a rematch planned with one of them (which implied he regularly played games with them).

Master Tapal made him run drills of escaping through the maintenance shafts.

He trusted his Master until the end.

We need more fun so I’ve got little headcanons for him:

He didn’t like tea until Master Tapal got him drinking it. He more so enjoyed the comfort it brought and the memories of his Master than the actual experience but he still liked experimenting with the different flavours. His favourite is one of Master Tapal’s blends from Lasan.

This is precisely why he doesn’t like tea now. It reminds him of too much, but he’ll drink it for Greez if the other wants him to. The comfort the Latero brings reminds Cal of something he used to have.

He kept a collection of trinkets with good echoes around his room. One of them is the holocron he keeps near his bed.

His blanket was a lifeday gift from the battalion, handmade.

He was still scared of the dark even one year into his apprenticeship. A mission gone wrong where he was stranded on an unsafe ship and had to use the dark to hide in quickly cured him of this though.

He still had a soft toy to sleep with, even just before order 66. He often hid it in a secret compartment in his room because he felt like he should be over that attachment, but later future Cal still wishes he had it to bring him comfort.

He particularly liked adding beads and strings he found on missions to his braid, decorating it not only with accomplishments but also echoes from jobs well done.

He was incredibly flexible and also incredibly energetic. It was tough to get him to sit still, let alone not to race off and start climbing everything he saw. Master Tapal had to teach him not to run off very quickly into their apprenticeship, but he never quite cured him of the latter habit.

Another habit Cal was never cured of was his curiosity, leading him to sneak around exploring places a lot and touching echoes he really shouldn’t have.

He really didn’t like needles or medbays. He would never go near either on his apprenticeship, but this aversion was quickly cured on the uncaring planet Bracca.

He actually had to be told by Master Tapal to stop giving everything he owned as gifts to everyone on board since his quarters were becoming quite bare. Cal did so anyways because he liked giving gifts and making others happy.

He let the clones paint his face in the battalion’s colours once and refused to wash it off for hours.

He had to get a rabies shot one time because he insisted on helping an animal that ended up biting him. He doesn’t regret it for a second though.

He made a little scrapbook of all the clones, what their Force signatures looked like and their names so that he could remember who was who even with the helmets on. He knew exactly who shot at him and who died by his Master’s hands after order 66.

Idk man.. this guy. This tiny little guy. He makes me very sad.

Psst!! HEY! If you want more of this kind of mushy stuff about Padawan Cal, maybe you should check out my fanfic… it’s literally the escapades of Cal and his clones except with a little Diathim twist..

[beskarthief]

Chapter 8 of the Star Wars fic "Order 65". The rest can be found here.

 Fox could see almost instantly that there was something Kosmo didn’t want to tell him. He could have made an educated guess that was the case just by the way he walked into their barracks after he got back, but by halfway into the debriefing he was sure of it.

 “-I looked him up in the system. CT-8475.” he finished, having kept careful note of every clone the senator spoke to. Fox just nodded, adding the number to his datapad. Kosmo continued tapping his foot.

 “Anything else?”

 The tapping intensified, then stilled entirely.

 “Um.” It started again, quieter, and he glanced down at his foot before stopping it again. “Maybe. Yeah.”

 “And?” Fox sighed. “I don’t bite.”

 Kosmo laughed nervously, like he thought that maybe Fox did actually bite. “Well, the Senator, she was asking a lot of questions-”

 Fox perked up instantly, watching Kosmo carefully. Could she have known, somehow?

 “-and I sorta accidentally let slip that the others aren’t very… fond of us.”

 “Did somebody give you trouble?” he asked sharply.

 “I- Not really. I mean, yeah. But it was barely anything.”

 Fox waited.

 “One of them knocked into me on his way out. He was drunk. It was no big deal.”

 “And that was enough to make her start asking questions?”

 “Well…” Kosmo shifted uncomfortably. “Most of them were looking at us sorta funny. Especially CT-6023. I think he’s ex-501st.”

 Fox sighed. “What exactly did you say to the Senator?”

 “I, uh, well. I just said that it was okay, cause I was used to it.”

 Could have been worse, Fox decided. “Alright. Get some rest. We’re on in the morning.”

 “Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.”

 “Nothing we can do now.”

 Kosmo got up to leave, but turned back to him after a moment, bouncing up and down on the heels of his feet before he asked; “Why did you want me to keep such a close eye on the Senator?”

 Fox stiffened. He’d chosen Kosmo for this job because he thought he’d understand if he explained it to him the right way. But that didn’t mean he wanted to have to.

 “Nothing you need to worry about, Sergeant.”

 Kosmo nodded stiffly. “Of course, sir. Sorry, sir.”

 Fox didn’t watch him go, just kept his eyes trained on his datapad and it’s new list of suspicious persons. If everything went smoothly, they never needed to know what their mission actually was. It would just be another scar on their already battered record. They’d survive. 

 “So.” 

 Fox hadn’t heard Eight come in and looked up quickly, surprised and somehow feeling as though the other clone had been able to overhear his thoughts. Eight was leaning in the doorway, half out of his armor, absently rubbing his thumb against the dull metal of his left pointer finger. 

 “If you’re not going to tell Kosmo what we’re doing, I’m guessing you have no intentions of telling the rest of the squad either?”

 “You already know what we’re doing.” Fox said, attention returning to the datapad before him. “And you shouldn’t be eavesdropping on your superior officers.”

 “Sorry.” Eight didn’t sound it as he plopped down on the bunk across from Fox. “You know, we’d be better at this if you told us what we were actually doing.”

 “What are you implying, trooper?”

 “I’m not implying.” Eight said, voice matter of fact. “I’m stating. We’re not stupid, you know. You picked the wrong squad if you were after stupid.”

 Fox put aside the datapad with a sigh. He would go through the list later. Rising from his seat, he crossed to the door that led out to the common area and closed it softly. Turning back to Eight, he saw the other clone’s eyes bright with interest. He sat up a little straighter. 

 “Well?”

 Fox locked the door before returning to his seat. Eight leaned forward as he sat down, expectant.

 “I don’t have to tell you anything.”

 Eight waited patiently, knowing full well that he was going to anyway. Fox took a deep breath before saying, simply;

 “We’re not just protecting the Senator. We’re also keeping an eye on her.” Close enough to the truth that Eight would believe it, far enough that when things were over he wouldn’t have to ensure his silence. “The Emperor has reason to believe that she has connections to mutinous organizations within the Empire. We’re supposed to figure out who, where, and what they are before reporting back to him.”

 “This came straight from the Emperor?” Eight breathed, as though speaking the name of some all knowing deity. Fox hid a grimace. 

 “Yes.”

 “I’ll be happy to-”

 “No.” Fox was already shaking his head before he could even finish. “The reason I didn’t tell any of you is because I can’t have you acting oddly around the Senator. If she catches wind of what we’re up to, this entire operation is over.”

 “Of course.” Eight said eagerly. “Which explains why you didn’t tell Kosmo. But you can trust me, sir. I won’t let you down. I won’t let our Empire down.”

 The unfortunate thing was, Fox believed him. 

 “I know you won’t, trooper. But just keep this between us for now. And don’t do anything out in the field. I’ll let you know if we get orders to.”

 “Yes, sir.” Eight stood at attention, giving him a quick salute. 

 “Dismissed.”

 He left, still with a slight swagger to his step at this newfound purpose. Fox had chosen this squad partly because of him. Because he knew that if he ended up needing a second man to finish this job, he knew Eight would volunteer without hesitation. Because he knew he could keep his mouth shut if he had to. Wouldn't complain about some backwaters posting afterwards. I won’t let our Empire down. But using him in that way still left a bad taste in his mouth. 

 Finally alone, Fox let the stoic expression fall from his face and frowned at the datapad. So many brothers, discontented with the lot they’d been given, willing to talk to Senator Chuchi and ferry information to… whoever it was she was connected to. Some of them, he knew, would be innocent. But others weren’t. And it didn’t matter if they were his brothers, it was his job to figure out who was guilty. And then take care of it. 

 Anyway, they had all shown him what they thought of brotherhood. He didn’t owe them anything.

 A message popped up into his inbox, an invitation he hadn’t seen in a while. Caf tomorrow? It said next to the icon with Thire’s number in it. He replied a quick yes, as well as a time and a place before returning to his work. At least he had a few brothers who considered him one in turn.

[lineli225]

Tomura's Shigaraki peculiar interest towards Izuku Midoriya: A compilation of every sus moment from him! PART 2

PART 1: https://www.tumblr.com/lineli225/741546036473053184/tomuras-shigaraki-peculiar-interest-towards-izuku?source=share

Then AFO comes and possess Tomura, that's the moment Izuku realized Tomura is a victim, and needs saving as well The last thing Tomura sees before being gone, is Yoichi's speech about Izuku's heroism, and Izuku jumping, his body moving on his own, to try to SAVE him from AFO

After that, Tomura is abasically gone, as his mind is consumed by All for One, as they fuse, it's beocmes hard to tell where Tomura ends and AFO starts, BUT! Thanks to SNS we finally can see a part of Tomura again! his core, his most genuine self, and what that apart says?

This is proof, that this whole time, Tomura's unconsciousness DID realize Izuku is a real hero, ever since he saw him save All Might, help Todoroki, fight Stain, save Eri and Koda, and so on and on, he always KNEW Izuku was different from the other heroes

Moving on, from Tomura's point of view, he was kept suffering the collateral damage in that cave, yet when AFO talks about Izuku, Tomura's eyes suddenly focus, looking straight towards UA

At UA we have Izuku worried about Tomura btw

After that, we finally move to THE FINAL WAR ARC! Where right at the start we have a funny event ShigaAFO, or mostly AFO, tried to spread decay through the floor, to quickly kill all heroes, but- for some reason- the guy that wants heroes dead- stopped him?

Tomura, why did you stop him? Was it because Izuku is there? Is it because you still want to be saved? (we'll cover this exact feeling later)

Moving on! Some of Tomura and his Izuku obcession traits comes mixed with All for One’s personality too, in the form of wanting to upset Midoriya by hurting his friends and… Praising him? He literally killed Bakugou just to get a reaction out of Izuku! yes AFO might be acting like this because Izuku is All Might's apprentice, but- we know Tomura is a huge influence.

Little context, we know who's personality is most in control through the eyes, AFO has no pupils, but Tomura does, so when ShigAFO has pupils, it means Tomura

THEN! IZUKU FINALLY ARIVES!

And Tomura's personality immediately fronts and start fighting for control

He literally BREAKS the mind fusion ONLY to talk to Izuku, to taunt him, to ask him if he’ll leave his responsibilities as a hero and not save everyone, to in his cat, tsundere, childish way of speaking ask: are you truly daring to try to save me?

The moment Izuku asks if Tomura is still there, Tomura immediately starts fighting against AFO, who tried to lie and stay he was gone

Then Izuku takes Tomura from what was his flying tomb, decided that he won’t let Tomura die, and announces once again, that he won’t ignore him

Anyways touching foreheads again

It won't be easy, specially since we're dealing with a tsundere "spicy kitten", Tomura is literally smiling the whole time, while taunting and bickering

Tomura almost seems to not be even tyring to fight, in canon they spent 20 minute spinning around, Izuku trying to keep him still, while Tomura only laughed

Tomura then shows his vestige world, it looks exactly like the city he was ignored by, as a kid, once again, showing how much this trauma still bothers him, we then have a very interesting scene with stars and stripes

SnS points to a crack, a fissure, that apparently she caused when destroying ShigaAFO's vestige, the crack represents the torn open hole in AFO's chest where Tenko was in, meaning, if the city is a barrier of lead formed by his hate and trauma, the crack in it then represents Tomura's little flicker of hope of being saved by izuku, that is bovious given soon we have another flashback to when Tenko though of a worthy hero…

it's important to note, another clue that Tomura does want to be saved (as if this all wasn't enough)

we know he relates to Bakugou, and YES, bkg IS improtant for Tomura's arc, during UA cage math, he had a stress attack when he saw people tyring to help Bakugou, which trigered him, since he wasn't saved when he wasn't broken

(proving he didn't consider himself broken before being found by AFO, and he does believe AFO broke him), so why would people save bakugou?

Later when Tomura sees Bakugou get up, he makes this very soft and surprised expression, his eyes shine, it almost look like hope

Now Izuku is focusing on trying to break Tomura's hatred barrier, by aiming at the crack...

Tomura also for some reason doesn't attack when Izuku stops, every time tomura had the chance, he just doesn't kill, he always waits him to get up again before attacking, it's almost like he doesn't want to actually severally hurt him!

This is all for now! Well, this is long XD and believe me, it can get longer, I had many other things and small moments i wanted to point out, but god, THEY HAVE A LOT of stuff Reading weekly and watching the anime might give the illusion that they have no developed relationship

, due to physically meeting only 4 times, but it’s on their perceptions and thoughts of each other that they are developed, pretty much subtext, but it’s there and shouldn’t be ignored the way it is!

This has been written only with Manga panels and canon content so it is explicit that it IS text. But boy if i add all the promo content, hori’s interviews and plans, songs, art, anime filler, of well, THEY HAVE A LOT OF CONTENT

Anyways, when MHA end i'll surely make a new post about it!

[cyber-skeletons]

hiii:>>>

6 + 9 + 5 for megatron, 1 + 10 for Optimus, and/or 13 + 4 for both:333

hc game

HI FRIEND!!!!!! Once more you have come to bless us with asks I see <333 Sooooo sorry for how late this is, things got busy and stayed busy

Megatron:

6) Something they lost, but would love to have back

My god. I've seen some HEAVY answers to this one and I love toying around with those, but as for what I actually believe in:

Terminus.

9) What calms them when they are upset. 

When she's angry and frustrated, she likes to destroy things. Sometimes those things are people. As for sadness and fear, I'm running away with my age regression headcannon again and saying that she likes to hide under a weighted blanket and listen to a safe, trusted love one's spark pulse as they rock her. If there's no one she considers safe, she'll play an audio file of some random spark pulse and pretend someone loves her.

5) A cherished personal belonging. 

During the war, she tried to keep no sentimental belongings ("no attachments"), but after, when she's in recovery, she holds onto the first thing given to her as a genuine act of kindness and belief in her goodness. (In IDW, a Rodimus Star; in Earthspark, a "live laugh love" framed photo of her and Dot; etc.)

Optimus:

1) Something this character is truly proud of.

Can it be someone? Because my first thought was "Bumblebee." Yes I'm on the "Dadtimus" hype train, but more than just the simple cuteness I genuinely think Optimus's pride manifests in the lives he manages to guide and protect for the better

10) How they deal with pain. 

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck you just had to hit me with this didn't you. damn. well. The answer is that he ignores it. Optimus is the #1 target of Ratchet's wrath when he comes in with three rust infections and a completely stripped joint because he played the "I'm fine, tend to others first" game for too long. It's to the point of self harm. And mental pain???????? OH, BUDDY. He just meditates on the Matrix until he loses his sense of self and slips into a state of dissociation so deep that he can function again. Sometimes he implodes and has a 2-hour meltdown in his quarters and then he just starts the buildup all over again.

Both:

13) What kind of parent they would be. 

Crying weeping foaming at the mouth clawing at the walls shaking like a little dog. Them as parents is. everythign 2 me

Anyway, Megatron is a hot mess. He oscillates wildly between being the "fun dad" and the helicopter parent. Always obsessed with knowing exactly where they are at any given moment, if their surroundings are safe, if he can trust other mechs to so much as look at them... the moment that sparkling emerges, he's unlocked an entirely new level of PTSD. Also, because he grew up with "wire mother" instead of "cloth mother," he's VERY screwed in the head and doesn't know how to give affection at first. He shows his love through acts of service and protection until he finally adjusts enough to hug and cuddle. When their sparkling becomes a teen, that's when he really hits his stride. He handles the rebellious streak and the angst with an almost supernatural grace and shocking empathy and patience.

Optimus meanwhile is a tempering, nurturing force right out of the gate. He is the Snugglemaster, always willing to provide praise and affirmations. However, he is also just as paranoid as Megatron about their safety and is also a helicopter parent. That sparkling is 2000% homeschooled and has next to NO privacy. He absolutely gets cornered by the likes of Elita and Bumblebee staging an intervention that he's going to crush his bitlet if he doesn't open up that iron grasp, and that Megatron needs a counterweight. After that, Optimus absolutely earns those "#1 Dad" mugs, and even gets Megatron to chill tf out. It's the teenage years he has to watch out for. He struggles adjusting to his sparkling's new interests and struggles and he tries but man... it takes him a long time to break out of seeing his little one with Permababy Syndrome.

4) What they would do if they had one month to live. 

Megatron is no holds barred fighting it with all her might. She'll spend the entire month searching for a cure or a solution, she'll struggle and rage and defy it every step of the way, even if it means leaving her loved ones in a time of peace. She will never go gently into that good night. It is her nature to rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Optimus, if he's not going "finally," then he's using that time to give as much closure to others as he can. Making happy memories with loved ones, tying loose ends, building things. He's already written like three separate speeches for this day, a la "when I am gone, do not lament my absence" and "when you look up at the stars, think of one of them as my spark."

[teecupangel]

Tee, I'm re-reading Esama's glorious Sailing the Stars again and, a few chapters in, I thought- if the Desmond who could Hear Us got caught up in this scenario, many of us would be screaming at each other. Some in panic, some in excitement, and a few/one of us are starting to sound slightly unhinged from how long we've been laughing (read: cackling) for and how it's been growing so loud that's it's more like mad howling and it starts to drown out everyone else through sheer Awkwardness and how Unnerving it is.

Meanwhile, Desmond is just standing, awkwardly, before either a couple of Jedi or the entire Council- who are also slightly frozen in awkwardness because the Force is being as unhinged as the Cacklers but less Awkward and Unnerving and more, laughing/howling at a joke that it's decidedly Not Explaining. To Anyone.

And then the cackling suddenly stops and someone says, with a slasher grin you could almost hear: "Hey Des baby, can you go ruin the entire fucking careers of some Siths for us? Pretty please?"

Not sure which time Desmond would come out of, but I find it hilarious if Desmond manages to appear during a time when Qui Gon Jinn and Dooku were having problems later in their relationship but before he takes Vosa as his padawan and now Jinn has to deal with not only the knowledge that His Master Fucks but also has, and does occasionally, Fuck with Sifo Dyas and Madame Nu when the time and preference arises. The mental damage alone has some of Us laughing our asses off. Not to mention the implicated existence of Actual Gods/Patrons and the multiverse.

Sailing the Stars by esama (If you love Star Wars and Desmond Miles, go give it a read if you haven’t… or reread it if you already have XD)

This… isn’t exactly a fanfic of a fanfic because this can be summarized more as “Desmond gets awaken in the Star Wars timeline during maybe the Tales of the Jedi series? and he can still hear us”. I don’t think you need to have read Sailing the Stars to get this little snippet, at the very least.

.

.

Desmond has no idea what to do.

By this point, the voices in his head, the capricious ‘watchers’, would be giving him directions or suggestions but they were all still freaking out.

Because, according to what he could actually understand from their freak outs, he was not supposed to be here and this was a ‘crossover’ and “OH MY GOD” and the occasional “I don’t know enough about this!” sprinkled here and there would imply that he wasn’t in his ‘universe’ anymore.

Even the first who talked to him had fallen silent after a dreadful “fuck, this isn’t my fandom” and that was definitely not a good sign.

The other voices he could recognize were too busy freaking out and they were arguing where Desmond.

To be more exact: they were questioning if Desmond was in ‘canon’ or in ‘legends’… whatever that meant.

There a low chant of “Desmond for Darth Revan!” that was being shushed once in a while

And here he was… just… standing.

This council of what they call Jedis was staring at him with furrowed brows, something about how the Force was surrounding him and was… very ‘chaotic’?

But not in a bad way?

Like the kind of giddy chaos that children would get into?

At least, that was what that short green… alien?

Is it racist for Desmond to call him an alien?

Aren’t they all aliens anyway?

Isn’t Desmond an alien too because, apparently, he’s different from the other humans that the Jedis have on record.

Being both more primitive and also too ‘different’ to be considered one of the older ones, whatever that means.

Desmond would have assumed that it was because of his Isu-human gene ratio but the more logical reason would probably be because he was…

Well…

Not from this universe.

Not that he was going to say that.

Even if he did, they would probably just assume he meant not from this specific ‘galaxy’ or whatever.

Desmond would take any kind of distraction at this point and he finally got his wish when the door slid open and two more men entered the room.

The voices were silent for a moment before some of them began to shout, “Oh my god. Is that Count Dooku?! He’s soooo young.”

“Oooohhh, Qui Gon Jinn! Look at him! He’s so baby!”

Desmond’s eyes met the older man that he was certain was supposed to be Count Dooku and the voices hushed for a moment before someone whispered.

“300K, slowburn, corruption arc, hurt and comfort, BAMF Desmond Miles, Good Count Dooku.”

Desmond wanted to sigh.

Maybe he should just run away at this point?

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 56 – Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone

I consider myself a pretty big fan of Gladstone’s, but until now I’d only ever touched his standalone works – I was previously a bit put off by the length of the Craft Sequence and so never actually tried it. So, thank you to the people who recommended I give it a try anyway! Despite being the first in a series, Three Parts Dead is a perfectly fine self-contained story and not relying on you reading the sequels to finish anything important. While it’s not the best thing of Gladstone’s I’ve read (Last Exit my beloved), it’s not the worst, either.

The book takes place in an industrial fantasy setting about a generation out from the apocalyptic, centuries-long war between the old gods and the ‘deathless kings’ – human sorcerers who had learned to master magic such that they could face them and tear the world apart in the crossfire. Tara, the hero, graduated from basically-Hogwarts entirely because there’s a binding preventing the school from doing bodily harm to its students – the next second they literally threw her out a window at 10,000 feet. The story follows her as she’s hired as a junior associate helping a world-famous lawyer/archmage as she’s hired by the church of Kas Everburning to investigate the sudden and mysterious death of their god. What follows are several hundred pages of convoluted scheming, legal proceedings, forensic accounting, and bloody magical duels and assassinations.

There are a few twists I genuinely didn’t see coming, the plot overall hangs together very well, and the pacing was just about perfect for the kind-of pulpy mystery/adventure story it was. Overall just a great time reading it.

That said, the setting’s probably the main thing to really sell people on this book. It’s just fun, and actually pretty damn original. The basic conceits are that a) magic is real, and b) so is capitalism. Kas Everburning is the beloved god and protector of the city, and also a highly leveraged legal entity loaning power across the globe whose death would catastrophically destabilize the global financial/metaphysical/political system. Mages can fly and raise zombies and enscroll people, but it’s all done in the idiom and with the vocabulary of contract law.

Beyond the basic conceit, Gladstone just clearly delights in layering weirdness on weirdness. Vitally, he does actually have a bit of restraint with the exposition – the book’s full of off-hand comments about different places and institutions that make you (me, anyway) incredibly curious about what the hell their deal is, but the actual explanations are restricted to what’s actually relevant to the plot and what the characters actually need to know. I still really want to know what’s up with King Clock or the Iskari or a half dozen other things, though. So, top-tier worldbuilding.

The themes are not exactly subtle, but I very appreciate that Gladstone lets them mostly remain as worldbuilding subtext and manages to make them feel like they emerge very naturally. I appreciate the slight restraint it takes to let the reader draw their own conclusions about the fact that the city’s police force is so empowered by strength and lack of need for doubt when on the clock that it’s literally addictive, or that one of the main antagonists is a brilliant older academic whose masterwork is a system where his star pupils (including a disproportionate number of attractive young women) are magically networked together to achieve incredible results he can take credit for while their lives and personalities are drained away to nothing. Being able to literalize the subtext a bit is half the fun of secondary wrld fantasy, after all.

Anyway, yes, very fun read. Four stars.

[thornescratch]

I wish you'd write a fic where Ovi tries to roleplay as Han and Leia with his husband with...mixed results.

I have a whole AU based around this now.

"Where'd you get the costumes?" Nicky asks, in a clear deflection.

"You don't like?" Alex asks.

"I didn't say that," Nicky says. He looks down at himself almost in surprise, like he's just now realizing he's also dressed up. He fingers the materials of his own collar and tugs at the buttons of the shirt, buttoning it up one button closer to his throat—Alex makes a noise of protest—and then unbuttoning it again. "It's better than I thought," he adds grudgingly as he smoothes his hands down the vest he's wearing, and takes a step closer to Alex. Despite the inspection of his own clothes, he's mostly been staring at Alex, which Alex chooses to interpret as a good thing. He pokes one of the gold bangles around Alex's bicep. "You didn't get them at the Spirit Halloween. So where?"

And in your size is implicit in his tone, but Nicky is too much of a gentleman to ever say that out loud, and anyway, Alex comfortably knows he sees it as a feature, not a bug.

"I know a guy," Alex says. It's actually Oshie's guy, but Oshie had been willing enough to pass along his number.

("He has great Disney shit," Oshie had confided. "Uh. You're not planning to do anything with, like, the Aristocats? I may have a thing in the works for that. Or for Robin Hood, Lauren's still deciding."

"No, no animals," Alex had said. "You good, we're good."

"Awesome," Oshie had said, and slapped his ass. "Trust me, man, you won't be disappointed." And Alex wasn't; Oshie had been telling the truth. The costumes were expensive but they were extraordinarily good shit.)

"Hmm," Nicky says in a tone that could mean any number of things, but most importantly isn't the tone that means Alex will be getting thoroughly dicked down within thirty seconds. But it's also not the this is absolutely not happening tone, so there's something to be worked with here and Alex just has to figure out the details.

"What, you don't think I look good?" he asks and strikes a pose, putting one foot up on the bed and hands on his hips for good measure. The maroon loincloth material swishes and drapes satisfyingly. A lot of the jewelry is actual gold, or plated. The leather boots are just out of the box new, so Alex doesn't think wearing them on the bed will hurt anything. Alex hadn't bothered with a wig because that would have turned it into too much of a parody, but he hadn't seen any problem in doing a little bit—well, a lot, but once he got started it was weirdly satisfying—manscaping for optimal presentation. The metal bikini top thing is more of a chest plate than a bra, which is fine, given that he doesn't have tits. The air conditioning and the metal makes it a bit of a trial for his nipples, but in an enjoyable way.

Nicky swallows nearly imperceptibly and he's already been betrayed by the rising flush on his face, so yeah, Alex knows the costume he's wearing is doing it for Nicky. So it's something else.

"Plus, you look good," Alex adds. Nicky always looks good, but the pants are showcasing his ass perfectly, and Alex timed this down to the minute, springing the costumes on him exactly twenty minutes after his shower, and his hair is at optimal, tousled roguishness.

"I didn't know you were into Star Wars," Nicky says.

"I've never seen them," Alex says cheerfully, and there, that's it, Nicky's expression does an immediate thing, and it's similar enough to the one where someone loses coverage on the penalty kill that Alex hastily adds, "I mean, you know, all of them, like, in order. So many. We don't have VHS for some. But I like them. You remember when I do that charity thing? I see all the characters then."

Nicky looks even more appalled, if such a thing is possible.

(We go on for like five more pages where Ovi keeps trying to get dicked down but Nicky's deal is accuracy, as he does not think Leia would be willing to dress in the slave bikini to seduce Han, nor would Han request her to, and Han was the one getting rescued and not rescuing Leia, and eventually Ovi is like, look, did you want to be Luke or something instead, and that sets Nicky off even more about it.)

[halfagonyandhope]

ignite the stars │ch. 3

first chapter (x); previous chapter (x)

Satine Kryze is an internationally-recognized scholar in genocide studies who recently resigned from the Department of State over her concerns regarding the agency's ethics. Ben Kenobi is a tenured professor at Georgetown University studying the use of religion to justify military conflicts. Once high school sweethearts, the two haven't spoken since parting ways for university. That is, until Satine accepts a research fellowship - at Georgetown.

---

Suddenly grateful she’d stocked up on wine, Satine reaches for the cabinet of glassware and then for a bottle next to the fridge. She’s never cared enough to learn which wines to chill and which to leave warmer, so her wine collection lives perpetually adjacent to the refrigerator. She takes a sip, knowing she wouldn’t notice the difference in taste anyway even if she had bothered to chill it.

The wine gives her permission to be bolder, and she makes her way to the couch, grabbing her laptop. Setting down the glass on a coaster, she decides the line between fuck and fuck it is now non-existent, so she opens an internet browser and types in Ben’s name.

If he’s been following her career, she needs to get up to speed on his. She will not allow him to have the upper hand here.

As it turns out, there is a lot to catch up on. He’d indeed graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point the same year she’d received her BA in anthropology from Stanford. She has to laugh when she discovers his major was sociology. Even four years removed from knowing each other, their worldviews were exactly the same and yet entirely different.

And when she’d jetted off to Oxford for her Rhodes Scholarship, he’d also been on the move. There is less on his life during this time period, but she’s able to gather he worked as a military translator abroad.

Of course he’s fluent in Arabic, she thinks, rolling her eyes. Because of course. 

When she’d worked at the Department of State, she’d been taught that some languages were more difficult than others for English-speakers to learn. Arabic - along with Korean, Mandarin, Cantonese, and Japanese - was in the “most difficult to learn” category, according to State’s categorization schema. Ben likely had spent all of his years as an undergraduate taking classes in the language, even if he didn’t have enough credits for a major, and he’d probably spent a great deal of time abroad learning to speak it well enough for him to be hired as a translator.

And him being fluent in such a difficult language? Satine groans. 

Sexy as hell.

She navigates to another webpage, wondering what he’s been up to since. Then she arches a brow, surprised. She’d come back from Oxford with her doctorate, on her way to Northwestern for a postdoc, and he’d come back from the war with a distinguished record of service - only to enroll as a graduate student at a Big Ten school in the Midwest.

He could have gone to any Ivy League of his choosing, could have had a fellowship literally anywhere in the world.

And he’d chosen Wisconsin for his doctorate?

Satine takes a large sip of wine, pondering this. He’d been in the political science department. She hums in consideration. The Ben she once knew had been radically liberal, and she suspects not much has changed in his political leanings despite the years. Moving to a purple state didn’t appear to make much sense for him.

She shakes her head. Maybe someday she’d ask him about it.

A thought occurs to her, but no - he’d moved to Madison a year before she’d accepted the postdoc at Northwestern. But their time in the Midwest had overlapped. For two years, they’d been within a three hours’ drive of each other.

The realization constricts around Satine’s heart.

Then she’d been recruited by State, and he’d been recruited by Georgetown. He’d completed a one-year postdoc there before being hired on as faculty.

Their lives were like parallel lines, forever running next to each other but never quite intersecting. Satine drains the rest of her wine.

She has a feeling the two of them are headed for that intersection now, and at full speed.

---

Ben climbs back into bed, lanky muscles still glistening with sweat and the scent of sex. One hand reaches for her jaw to cradle her face as he leans in for a soft kiss; the other hand holds a damp, warm washcloth.

“May I?” he asks, and Satine nods. He pulls the sheet away from her body, and his eyes rove over her skin. She shivers under his gaze, at the cool air.

He presses the washcloth between her legs, cleaning away the evidence of their joining. Satine wonders when she will remember how to breathe.

“Ben,” she whispers, and he meets her eyes. “How did you…how did you know exactly what to do?”

She’d been terrified the entire time. She’d had no one to ask before, had no idea what to expect. Beyond that it would undoubtedly be painful.

But it hadn’t been.

Not with him.

Ben sighs in relief. “I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am that you think that.” He finishes cleaning her and tosses the washcloth in the bathroom. Then he folds himself around her, hooking a leg over her hip, and pulls the comforter back over their naked forms.

He kisses her, slowly.

“I did a lot of reading,” he eventually admits. “Apparently, it’s not always painful if enough attention is placed on the…uh, preparation.” He swallows, and his young, wide eyes search hers. “You didn’t look like you were in pain. Were you? Was it painful?”

Satine shakes her head. “Not in the slightest,” she says. She brings his hand to her lips, committing to memory the feel of his clever fingers entering her, inside her, preparing her for what was to come. “On the contrary, it was perfect.”

She can practically feel his smile.

“I wish we had more time,” Ben says. “I can do better…the more I learn about you - ”

“Hush,” she says, kissing him again. She can’t let him continue down that line of thought, for her heart is already broken enough. She can’t let herself imagine what they might have had. “It was perfect,” she repeats.

She thinks he understands what she is thinking, and he nods. “I lo - ” he begins, but the look on her face freezes the rest of the words before they escape his throat. 

She’d thought she could hold it together until after they’d parted, but she’d thought wrong.

“Please don’t cry, Satine,” Ben begs, his face falling. “Satine.” And he pulls her more securely into his arms. “We’ll see each other again; I know we will.”

She buries her face in the crook of his neck.

“Promise me.”

“I promise you,” he says against her temple, and it is the last time she hears his voice for eighteen years.

---

Satine blinks at her alarm clock.

Damn him.

She’d been particularly proud of the way she’d buried that memory. She hadn’t dwelled on it in years. Until, of course, he’d waltzed back into her life and she’d been assigned the office next to his.

Though it’s still too early to get up, Satine rises anyway. She might as well take the early bus to campus - she wants to find her office before Ben arrives. She will not run the risk of him finding her wandering the halls again, still as lost as she was the night before.

But as it turns out, she needn’t have worried. She remembers the route he’d shown her last night, and she arrives at her office with only having taken one wrong turn. Pleased, Satine unlocks the door and steps inside.

It’s dreary and dull, with empty shelves and an empty desk save for the computer that was delivered to her yesterday. She’ll have the shelves filled with books - including the one she’d written - in no time, but she’d never been one for decorating an office space. It always meant more heartbreak when she eventually vacated said space and had to pack all her trinkets into a cardboard box. 

As she hangs her peacoat on the hook on the wall, there’s a knock at the door. Satine looks up to meet blue eyes icier than her own.

“Asajj Ventress,” says the woman, sticking out a pale hand. There’s a surety in her shoulders only gained by successfully defending one’s work against snakes and vultures; even if she hadn’t introduced herself by name, Satine would know she is speaking to a colleague rather than a grad or undergrad student.

Satine shakes the proffered hand. “Satine Kryze,” she supplies, and she takes in the woman before her.

Tall, thin, blonde, and pale like Satine, the resemblance ends there. Ventress’ platinum hair is cut short to one side and undercut on the other, and facial tattoos - possibly hinting at membership to a northern Indigenous group, Satine guesses - extend out from the lateral-most points of her eyes and lips. Despite her slim features, Satine gets the feeling that Ventress could snap her neck if she so pleased.

Ventress nods. “Oh, I know who you are,” she says. “Before you, there were two women in the department. And with Billaba on sabbatical, that meant it really was just me.”

“Want to come in for a moment?” Satine asks, gesturing at the chair in front of her desk.

Ventress doesn’t answer but strides through the threshold, her skirt flowing around her as she sits. Satine moves behind her desk and moves to sit as well. As she does, Ventress’ eyes follow her. “You’ll have already met my partner, Vos,” Ventress says.

Satine will return later to ponder the strangeness of addressing a partner by their last name. Instead, she says, “Yes, I met Dr. Vos when I interviewed here. He asked insightful questions. Seemed like he actually cared what my answers were.”

The steel of Ventress’ visage flickers for an instant as she takes in this compliment of her partner. “He’s always been better at the social aspect of academia than I am,” she says. “But I am trying to improve. The junior faculty - Vos, Kenobi, and myself - we usually go out for drinks on Friday afternoons, after the department seminar. You should join us.”

Satine’s heart stops and then works overtime the instant Ventress says Ben’s last name. It must show on her face, because Ventress lifts a platinum brow.

Before Ventress can comment, Satine accepts the invitation. “I’d like that,” she manages to get out, and suddenly there’s movement in the hallway. From her angle, she can’t make it out, but Ventress has full view.

Smoothly, Ventress calls out in a sing-song voice, “Kenobi, why the panicked expression?”

Satine tilts her head, curious, as Ben appears in the doorway, still clad in his winter outerwear. “Not a clue what you mean, Ventress,” he says, and Satine can tell he’s lying.

Ventress, it appears, can tell as well, and her eyes follow Ben’s…which have landed on Satine.

“Ahhh,” says Ventress with exaggerated understanding. She says to Satine, “So you’re the woman.”

“Beg your pardon?” says Satine, but Ben has suspiciously disappeared into his office to hide the blush that has reappeared on his cheeks, having nothing to do with the cold from outside.

Ventress smirks. “It probably would be best if you hear the details from him,” she says, eyes sweeping over Satine, who has the eerie feeling she’s suddenly being profiled. “Suffice to say that before I met Vos, Kenobi and I had a…situationship. It went nowhere fast, entirely due to the fact that he was hung up on another woman.”

Ventress stands before Satine feels the words sink in. When they finally do, Ventress is already halfway out the door.

“See you Friday,” she says over her shoulder, and Satine just blinks.

Well, she can’t begrudge Ben once having feelings for Ventress. If she weren’t attached to someone, Satine thinks, I’d probably fall for her, too. Still a little off-kilter, she stands and makes her way to Ben’s office.

It’s everything hers is not, with pictures in frames on his desk and fabric hung on the walls, such as the kufiya near the window and a scarf adorned with what she suspects are Russian folk motifs near the shelves. Ben looks up as she enters, and Satine reaches out for the door frame. She finds herself internally swearing at him again.

He’s wearing glasses, and it’s making her knees weak.

Trying to ignore the feeling, she says, “So, you and Ventress?”

Ben groans and throws himself in the chair behind his desk. “She had to tell you. Hence my panicked look,” he says.

Satine ponders this. "You didn't want me to know. Why?"

"She will surely tell you all sorts of ridiculous stories about me, all of them true.”

Satine snickers as Ben continues.

“Ventress and I had fun,” he says. “I don’t regret our time together. But the best thing that came out of it was that I introduced her to Quinlan. You see, at the time, Ventress wasn’t in the department. She was adjuncting over in Russian Studies, and Quinlan had just started a postdoc here. They hit it off, eloped, and soon after applied for the same position in International Studies. The department decided they liked them both equally and arranged a dual career hire to incentivize them sticking around.”

His face had heated again while he explained, and a sly smile crosses Satine's face. “You met Ventress because she was your Russian instructor.”

Ben removes his glasses so he can scrub a hand down his face. He groans again. “I was only auditing the class,” he says. "And in fairness, I stopped auditing the class as soon as things...escalated."

Satine tries to hide her laughter behind her hand. “So you’d mastered Arabic and decided you needed another language to tackle?”

“Someone spent last night Googling.”

She waves a dismissive hand. “Last night I sent you a LinkedIn request, so you already knew that.” Satine crosses her arms against her chest. “So you audited a Russian class? For fun? How fluent are you now?”

He responds in what she suspects is perfect Russian.

“So she was a good instructor, then.” In more ways than one, apparently.

If possible, Ben’s face becomes more red. “Is this revenge for me teasing you about getting lost? Because I’ll refrain from mentioning it ever again if you pledge to never bring up my relationship with Ventress.”

Satine shakes her head. “Not a chance. This is far better dirt to have on you than what you have on me.” She makes to step out of the office but pauses, looking back. “Ventress invited me to your happy hour on Friday. I think this could be the start of a beautiful friendship.”

She grins at Ben’s dismayed look, and takes her leave.

[crime-wives]

your turn. tell me about your wips 👀

oh lord... where do we begin. let's start with me meddison/grey's anatomy wips.

so you were never a saint, and i loved in shades of wrong. this wip is currently in progress, two chapters on ao3 so far. basically my take on an angsty s2 meddison. they run into each other constantly at joe's bar and are very sad.

hollywood au. my meddison hollywood au in which meredith is unwillingly dragged into the spotlight after finding out her boyfriend is a. married, and b. famous. she gets a guest role on the same tv show as him and his wife. things spiral from there.

dead derek s4 au. basically what the title implies. a 'what if' scenario in which derek died in s4, and meredith and addison connect over shared grief.

tedstina fic. this wip is if after owen cheats on her, cristina shows up, drenched, at teddy's apartment all 'i didn't know where else to go.' there is lots of sad, gay, pining.

now... we move on to my swan queen wips. there are a lot, be prepared.

sad regina mills fic #1. a very angsty wip about regina's relationship with food, set during s1 of ouat. she's not dealing very well with henry hating her, and she turns to one of her coping mechanisms, which may or may not land her in the hospital.

sad regina mills fic #2. set after cora's death, little snippets of regina reflecting on her mother, and childhood. some hurt/comfort, also hurt/no comfort so.

say don't go song fic. regina reflecting on herself and emma in the middle of the night, with the dagger, after emma's sacrifice post s4 finale. (also regina really misses emma and doesn't know what to do with herself.

s6 regina is sad about emma getting married fic. has this been done before, yes. but i want to do it. anyway, buckle up, this one is very sad. our favorite lovable idiots fight, and make up, there are 'i miss you' texts, and lots of lesbian pining.

camelot hurt/comfort au. a little ficlet, (which could spiral into something bigger if i'm not careful,) in which emma seeks comfort from regina on a day when the voices are really loud. there's bed sharing and cuddles, and also hook is thrown into a tree.

the hanahaki au. um well... this is exactly as it sounds. set like 4b-ish. regina starts coughing up flowers one day, and it slowly gets worse until she's almost dead.

there's bed-sharing in this one. after a fight with her parents, emma shows up at regina's place. there are feelings, angst, and surprisingly maybe fluff.

the road-trip fic. uber driver x runaway bride. that's all i'll say.

neverland rewrite. except swanqueen, and mentions of torture. two hurt women heal together and find their son.

there are more... but i'll stop there.

here are some ideas i've had, but haven't written yet:

regina on henry's birthday during the missing year

my hc that regina taught herself how to draw/paint during the first 18 years, and the people she paints as vignettes.

supercorp: lena knows kara is supergirl au, but angsty

my meddison fic after meredith grey almost drowns

oh, my star wars fusion swan queen fic

anyway... i'll end this here before i get too carried away lol (this took forever to type.)

[monstersinthecosmos]

please make longform sheith posts on tumblr 😭😭😭 (if you so wish ofc)

hjaklgd I hung onto this ask because I was waiting for the right time to talk about Sheith and I got such an insightful comment on my fic Tonight the Stars Revolt! that I decided I wanted to talk a little meta about the thought process that goes into this fic and so here you are and it's time to utilize this invitation !!!!!!!!!!!!

The comment from DocYo5 as follows:

It feels like reality, the feelings and thoughts Keith has, fitting for someone who had to grow up without close relationships, with Shiro being closest to a family member before he left for Kerberos. Understandable that he's able to open up to him, because he trusts him and somehow understandable that they can have sex together without hard feelings... At least from Keith's point of view. We can only guess how Shiro feels about this, probably more than he lets out. For me it's surprising to have sex with someone repeatedly without considering to love him, to announce it as weird to like him when I think it's much more weird to fuck someone often without love, only to get release. In this fic I think it's possible that it stays that way. So I am curious what you will make of it. The way you put it it would make sense.

So!!!! This is exactly the dynamic that this fic is ABOUT, okay? And while some of this pertains to my fic specifically and the places their relationship goes behind the scenes of canon, I did build it off of canon, so a lot of this speaks to the way I’m reading them on the show.

Since the fic is Keith’s POV we’re spending more time with his interiority, naturally, but I’m going to get to Shiro in a second lol. But I think Keith is someone who really compartmentalizes his feelings. I think he, more than the others on the show, sort of has an ON and OFF switch in which he’s either a grumpy little shit or he’s simply dealing in facts. It’s SO rare to see him smile; I think he laughs, like, once? Even in the shitshow of S8 he can’t enjoy himself on their day off at the carnival.

Compartmentalizing can be a useful tool, especially given that the characters are at war, but it can be so harmful, as well. And Keith, unlike the others, tends to have sort of violent outburst from time to time and does lose his temper. I know the creators one time ascribed this to his being half Galra, which I think really opens a fucking can of worms when we talk about Keith’s emotional intelligence as well as being neurodivergent; it’s a popular fanon read that Keith is autistic, and there’s a lot of clues!, but I also have to ask like, how much of his Galra half is driving in his brain? And if his brain is only half human, that literally means he’s neurodivergent from a typical human.

I strayed from my point a little but I’m trying to say that Keith perhaps relies on anger a little too much, whether it’s genetic or not, and sometimes I think compartmentalizing looks like him being angry all the time because he won’t interact with any of his other feelings.

THE EXCEPTION TO THIS of course, is with Shiro! There are so many moments of him and Shiro where he’s vulnerable and soft in a way he doesn’t show to other characters! And I think it’s easy to overlook this when we watch with shipping goggles—of course we ARE SEEING IT because we’re shipping it lmao but it’s easy to forget that he doesn’t show this to anybody else.

So anyway I’ve been very intentional in this fic to try to write Keith as obsessively compartmentalizing and trying to keep a hold on all of his emotions and have control over the way other people perceive him. I’ve ranted & raved about this before but I read Keith as a person who makes himself deliberately unpleasant so that he can control when people come & go from his life, rather than ever trusting anyone or relying on them or having his feelings hurt when he inevitably gets abandoned again.

I often struggle in this fic with the line between showing and not telling because I am very aware that a lot of the text IS telling, but this is intentional! Keith obsesses over every feeling, every interaction with Shiro, he questions everything he says and does and worries about it for days! This is part of his anxiety around the whole situation and not knowing if he’s behaving correctly! He doesn’t want to compromise his relationship with Shiro, because it’s the ONLY meaningful relationship in his life AND Shiro is the ONLY person he has the stomach to trust, but on top of that he simply does not understand how he’s supposed to act. So every interaction between them is this huge puzzle for him to figure out and he’s stressed out as fuck!

And this fic is about him trying to compartmentalize all these human emotions and needs, like, his need to have sex, his need for companionship, maybe even his need for love? And he has the drive to want these things. (Does his growing and uncontrollable horniness have anything to do with same non-human half that dictates his temper? We shall see. 😏)  But how does he navigate “I am horny and want to get off” vs “I need the companionship of my best friend” alongside “having sex with someone is actually very intimate” and in the end "sexual intimacy makes me uncomfortable because in some ways this thing with Shiro is everything that I want, but if I admit that and lose it I will be destroyed” ?? How can these things coalesce for him???

The idea for this fic was me trying to subvert some tropes I was seeing all the time in Sheith fic and the main one is like, we have a habit of making them such soulmates and making it so seamless! WHICH IS FINE AND GOOD, I LOVE THOSE FICS TOO LOL, but I wanted to ask like, what if it was messy, what if they were just fucking? And I think part of me wanted to keep the illusion going for longer, when I was first planning the fic, and it wound up like growing a life of its own and taking me to a lot of places I didn’t intend to go. And I say that because, where we are right now in the story, I don’t think either of them are denial about their feelings, or withholding on purpose. I think Keith is compartmentalizing, and I tried to get at this a little bit when he has the conversation with Pidge about what love means. He loves Shiro, he already loved Shiro. He will love Shiro regardless, as a friend. And he’s also fucking Shiro. And he’s keeping these two things separate. And I don’t write it as if he’s pining and WANTS more (just yet) as much as he’s just found himself in a tricky emotional space and doesn’t know where his boundaries are.

The complication of the perhaps-alien-half dictating his libido trying to co-pilot with his very human half that is demisexual is a problem, too. Like he asks Pidge in Chapter 8: . “If you love someone as a friend, but you’re fucking them. When does it become, like. I don’t know. Romantic?”

He doesn’t know! We don’t know! Let’s keep going and see what happens lol.

SHIRO ON THE OTHER HAND.

What makes him such a great character (for me lol) is that like, he could so easily be such a 2D character and just, the fearless leader who is always chill and nice to everybody, and we DO get that to an extent, but they were generous in making him so multifaceted. He has PTSD. He struggles with his disability. He even loses his temper sometimes! When he gets back (as Kuron) he has a lil depression cave sesh in his bedroom in his PJs. Like he’s a very well rounded character and it makes him extremely realistic and human to me!

I don’t think it’s as fair to say that he compartmentalizes the way that Keith does, except what we can glean from his canon timeline. Meaning: He fights for the Kerberos mission despite his disability, he makes it up there only to be abducted, he survives the arena, he escapes to lead Voltron. And ALSO him being canonically queer; I think this starts getting into headcanon territory because I don’t think we get any clues in canon that they’re navigating homophobia in their universe, but we absolutely still see ableism and sexism. (Put a pin in the racism conversation as well when it comes to like, alien species and systems of oppression because there’s a lot to unpack and I’m trying to focus LOL.) So like, we do know that their world isn’t perfect, and Shiro is someone who had to work his ass off and fight for his rank and for his career. He’s someone who can put his feelings aside and focus on the task at hand, and we know this because he’s NOT perfect, he does occasionally lose his temper, and he has PTSD!

Basically, I think we have to assume he compartmentalizes to function, because he comes out of a year of INTENSE trauma to immediately lead a team, and lead them with kindness and patience, and the writing tells us that it’s not a matter of him being Perfect Cartoon Man, because he’s not a perfect person and he’s traumatized as fuck.

Because the fic is Keith’s POV I’ve tried to communicate this by Keith noticing that Shiro wears “masks”, or uses different voices. Sometimes it’s even about his clothes, like as they become more intimate and Keith starts seeing more of Shiro’s scars, and how Shiro is self-conscious about them. But it’s also moments like in Chapter 7 when Shiro is crying.

I feel that Keith and Shiro have some like sort of equal-opposite relationships to trauma and grief that balance each other in the end. Like, Keith lost his dad at a young age and had a horrific childhood, but that’s been his reality for most of his life and he’s learned how to carry it day-to-day.  Even though he’s a messier and more immature person, he’s used to shouldering it and it’s sort of baked into his personality at this point. But Shiro’s trauma is SO new. Shiro’s is a ton of shit ALL AT ONCE, vs. Keith’s 10+ years of grief and disappointment, and it’s so recent!  Even though Shiro is, on paper, a more mature and emotionally intelligent person, this is very new to him!

So Shiro in this fic also has some feelings he’s juggling, like, “I am touch starved and have physical needs” and “my mentee grew up kinda hot” and “I have to be very careful with him and his feelings”. He sees Keith for the mess that he is, and he’s patient, and he can wait for Keith, and take Keith’s lead.

I don’t feel that Shiro is pining necessarily, either—I think he’s a lot more grounded and realistic, and their encounters aren’t causing him the same level of anxiety because he can read Keith so clearly, even when Keith can’t read him back. But I think, he is pining a LITTLE lol. I think because he’s smart enough to know where this is heading, and he’s being patient, but he’d speed it along if it were up to him. They’re both so sensitive in different ways and I think they’re both so vulnerable to hurting each other’s feelings!!!! And Shiro is trying so so hard not to crush Keith like a little egg!!!!!!!!!!!

😊

Anyway !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you for coming to my lecture! I don’t say this often about my fics because it makes me squeamish but I LOVE this fic, it really is where I put all my Sheith love, and all the thoughtwork I do about them is FOR THIS FIC lol it’s my lovenote to them, I’m putting my whole Sheithussy into it ahskjgdlasd

[riddlemaster101]

What is one book, one tv show and/or movie, and one fic you think more people should try?

Unexpectedly hard question that I've been thinking about for days now, thanks Rifle! Done my best to answer with things I don't see on tumblr all the time.

tl;dr: Book (fiction): The Wizard of Earthsea. Book (nonfiction): Worn: a People's History of Clothing. Movie: The Secret of Roan Inish. TV: skipped in favor of explaining why you should go watch speedrunning to learn how computers work. Fic: The Edge by jplus (link below).

The in depth summaries/rec:

Book (fiction): the Wizard of Earthsea series by Ursula K le Guin. A bunch of short novels investigating what it means to be a person and grow into yourself as seen through the eyes of a number of different characters from different walks of life. Set against the backdrop of some of the most breathtaking worldbuilding I have ever read.

Book (nonfiction): Worn: a people's history of clothing by Sofi Thanhauser. An in depth look into the social history of clothing and cloth, and with a heavy focus on the global commerce's reliance on the fast fashion industry. If you want to know why the clothing market is Like That and exactly how deeply western economies/foreign policies revolve around cheap and exploitive labor, this book is for you. Heads up: it is a very heavy read.

Movie: The Secret of Roan Inish (1994). A story about family and growing up and industrialization taking over nature/the old ways and the sea. And also about selkies. You know that post that goes around about "that one weird movie your parents happened to have (on vhs) that absolutely no one else has heard of and also that changed your life?" Yeah. This one's my very favorite childhood movie.

TV show (but not really): I...really just don't watch any shows anymore, so I'll pivot and answer something that was not asked instead! Which is:

If you want to learn how computers work on a practical level (hardware, software, programming) but it's always been so abstract or confusing or you just can't visualize what is going on and it refuses to stick in your head (...this is me), I cannot recommend watching in-depth technical explanations of video game speedrunning enough. They tend to be an excellent demonstration of the intricacies and delicate balance of programming and exactly what it means to break/screw with that balance, in a way that is a very visual and memorable and often funny. Seriously. 10 university classes on programming don't hold a candle to what I got out of a few well-commentated GDQ speedruns. DM me for specific video recs.

Fanfic: The Edge (series), by jplus. An epic that explores the Star Wars plot from Rogue One onward through the end of the Sequels, the stories of which are all twisted (in excellent directions) to fit into this AU. Mostly follows the separate but interwoven stories of Bodhi (who survived to fight in the Rebellion) and Jyn/Cassian (who are stranded on a planet with only the barest ability to communicate back and yet manage to contribute to the rebellion anyway). Deals with survivor's guilt, ptsd, trauma, healing, growing, and moving on. AMAZING worldbuilding. Told in a non-linear fashion that helps break up what would otherwise be unbearable building plot tension.

This is ultimately a rebelcaptain kid-fic (way down the line) and one of the only one's I've read where I can see "yeah in this specific world they might have kids". Also, since it's my unofficial RO fic litmus test: some of the best characterization of Davits Draven I've ever seen.

[the-punforgiven]

All My Tarnished In Elden Ring

2 of you said do it so I'm doing it lmao

My first character is Ari, they were my very first character and are currently my "main" character. They started out as a raw Strength Claymore-only build and just kinda stayed that way until after I'd beaten the final boss. My original intent was to have them do the rad Carian Sword stuff as a sort of spellsword/battlemage thing, and while they can do that now, I just kinda waited a little too long to spec them into INT so now they're just a friendly summon who's a tanky sword-wielding sword mage who can deal a casual 7453 damage with Carian Grandeur under the right circumstances (As for weapons since they're my Main character I've got a bunch of random shit I've leveled for hyper specific situations, but Claymore is still, as always, Old Reliable for them)

My second character is one named Bryndegaard, she's a VERY heavy Strength/Faith build that I like, accidentally made good lmao Turns out guard counters with the Great Mace do a lot of stance damage Her shield doesn't have an Ash of War on it, and her mace has Prayerful Strike, so even if someone does manage to hit her through it, her vigor is so good and Prayerful Strike is so strong that the damage is usually pretty negligible. She's my tank/healer build first and foremost, but I also have the Envoy's Longhorn levelled up for her just in case I need to absolutely decimate a large boss like Placidusax or Astel. The Longhorn also worked surprisingly well against Elden Beast, as turns out its 80% Holy Damage negation doesn't mean much if you output too much damage for it to matter

My third character's named Edge, Lord He was supposed to be my Spooky Scary Death Mage but tbh I haven't touched him in a while so right now he's just a really unoptimized scythe guy with like, Rancorcall and that's it. I tried to make him look like a black metal musician and I think I did really well, but he also looks so angy it's really funny to me fhdjksahfkxz

Fourth character is Vlad, he's my funny little Dracula Boy. He's not very good but I love him nonetheless. He's built around claws, bleed, and Lifesteal Fist, which I'm very glad was recently buffed because man, this guy was not great to play before that lmao Also I love how tiny his head looks with that cape it's really funny to me

5th character is Guano Gobbler. Very original. Do Not Steal. Idk man I wanted to get the Dung Eater ending at least once, and idk I didn't want to get it on anyone else. I did use the Dung Eater's facial presets for him, I just thought it'd be funny to make him bald too

6th character is the lovely Cap'n Rumguzzler. My entire thought process behind him was 'want pirate' and then I made one. I have no idea what build I was gonna make with him and as a result he fucking sucks but I love him anyway. He also has a cannon hidden in his back pocket or something (I am aware what his name is one letter away from, that just straight-up did not occur to me at all when I was first naming him)

7th character is my Gravity Boy, I don't like his name so you don't get to know it. I've decided he's not going to progress past Maliketh because I still want at least one character I can co-op with in Leyndel. He's exactly what he says on the tin, he's got a Zweihander with Waves of Darkness and he's got a bunch of gravity spells. Not much else to say tbh aside from that I really like how the purple of the gravity magic goes with his All Black Everything look tbh. It's just very aesthetically pleasing to me

8th character is The Legend Herself, 4PattyCheeseBurg. She's built with the express purpose of having the highest possible health achievable in game. Her first 85 levels were all in Vigor (She started out with 14). She only uses the Star Fist. Red Sun gets stuck in my head every time I play her. She's somehow the strongest character I've ever had for Colosseum battles. I've made people just straight-up avoid her completely for entire matches. Demigods fall before her. The earth itself shatters at her victories. She's so fun to play I love her

Her health bar looks like this btw.

9th character is, regrettably, RudolphReindeer. My friend wanted to do a funny holiday-themed run and he'd already claimed Santa, so this is the best I could come up with. You don't get to see his face up close because I hate it

10th is my sleep build, Eurythmics (Because, y'know, Sweet Dreams) idk what else to say about them aside from that they're here, they do sleep, I don't know what to do for their fashion, and they're Not Very Good

11th character is just this one, I've named her Sellsword because idk what else to do with her She's a Quality/Quality-Mage build and I just kinda use her for testing out all sorts of wacky shit trying to wrangle huge damage and big AoE's (Fun Fact: Hoarah Loux's Earthshaker is buffed by the Highland Axe, and the buff stacks if you have a second one, but for some reason it is not buffed by the Roar Talisman) I like making her dual wield stuff also

and the 12th (last) character is this one, She's a Quality build with a bit of arcane. With her I typically use either the Claymore, Marais Sword, or Eleonora's twinblade, and the Dragon Communion Seal in her off hand. Her damage is surprisingly good for me barely playing up her bleed potential, and for some reason she tends to get summoned by randos way more than my other builds, couldn't possibly imagine why She's in the Hoslow set here, but sometimes I switch it up and put her in the Briar armor (With the Vagabond legs/arms) instead. idk just kinda depends on mood but I think the Hoslow chest's red bits compliment her eyes idk

And that's it, that's all of them minus a few I started, got like 5 feet from Limgrave, and haven't touched since

Elden Ring 10/10 game, absolutely consumed my life 👍

[wearethekingdom]

Psssstttt, Caseeeeyyyyyyy! F1 sounds so epic im ngl and i wanna hear more about it, pleaseeeee Infodump to meeee! (if you want to ofc :3)

(sorry this took me so long to answer 😭)

OMG PHIN YES YOUVE MADE MY WEEK THANK YOU

okk I'm just gonna write it here so I can make it into a post with pictures if that's okay :3

So before I begin with my rant about the last race I have to give an honourable mention of my 2 favourite drivers ever Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri because I won't be bringing them up later but I refuse to leave them out because they're my fave drivers so I have to (lando on the left oscar on the right! And no lando is unfortunately not named after the star wars character ☹️)

ANYWAY LAST RACE on Sunday. Every race day is on a Sunday btw..

So this race didn't exactly go how I hoped it would but its okay because no matter who wins I'm happy for them because I'm incapable of hating any of the drivers for some reason?

IDK IF YOU KNOW HOW GRID POSITIONS WORK... but basically there's 20 drivers and they all line up behind the starting line 2 behind 2 if that makes sense? (There's an event on Saturday to decide who starts where it's not randomised haha) so my boy lando was starting up front erm. He did not stay there he ended up in 6th which is not very good for him, he's 2nd to be world champion right now so he usually ends up top 3 but umm not this time

It was a very wet race, I don't think it rained but there was insane rainfall the days before and the track was practically flooded

So much happend, so many drivers crashed (they're all okay!) Including my fave rookie (new driver) Franco Colapinto

Which sucks cuz he's been doing realllyyyy well lately

So who won?? Max Verstappen, you've probably heard his name, you've probably seen the "tu dududu max verstappen" meme (that's how I got into f1 btw lmao) max hasn't won a race since before the summer break over 100 days!! Last year Max won evert single race except 3 of them and 2 of those were his teammate checo perez

Then in 3rd and 2nd place we had one of the worse performers teams this year. How did they even end up there? Basically someone crashed and there was a yellow flag (or red I can't remember.. ) when this happens all the drivers have to stop overtaking eachother and drive one behind the other in their formation so no crashes happen if the car that crashed causing the yellow/red flag is on the track or there's parts on the track

Drivers can go for a pitstop to change tyres while this happens, everyone went to change their tyres except max, esteban and pierre (those last 2 being the team worse performing)

Esteban was in first but once the yellow flag ended max quickly overtook him, in the end max came first, esteban second and pierre third

This was a big deal for alpine (esteban and pierres team) estie and pierre had been known to be childhood buddies that had grown to hate eachother, something about an accidental love triangle and old karting championships as kids that lead to them hating eachother, they both were French kids trying to achieve their dreams and while this is true this podium changed something for them. I've never seen them so happy, for a long time Estie wouldn't even look at pierre, wouldn't talk to him but after this podium? They were like kids again

This shocked a lot of people because well their history and also cuz so many people think estie is a bad person and like he's a little dumb sometimes but he's not a bad person that's really far out, at the end of the day he's silly and he's estie bestie

Max also ate this up cuz he was happy to be winning again and I'm happy to see him on that top step again

So all and all it was a good race really and I loved seeing my alpine boys happy again

Thank you for reading if you have any questions let me know and sorry if it's confusing f1 is exactly that 😭

[your-resident-boat-person]

hi boat mutual you are in my fav mutuals circle. why is the RMS olympic ur fav ocean liner?

OOOOoooooh thank you SO much for asking. So, I measure ocean liners by a few criteria. External Appearance, Internal Appearance, Career, Speed (relative to the fastest liner of her time), etc.

In terms of External Appearance, I like the Olympic. She’s not my favorite, I think I might prefer the SS United States or the Queen Mary, MAYBE even the Mauretania too, but that's tough. Anyway, I love the shape of the Olympics forward superstructure. I think she pulls off the relatively square/flat superstructure much better than ships like the Aquitania. I think Aquitania's superstructure might just be ever so slightly too tall, but I’m not quite sure. I’ve also never been a fan of the split superstructure near the bow like on the RMS Oceanic and the Big Four. Anyway, The ratio of superstructure to hull to funnels is just fantastic. The shape/proportions of Olympics funnels are excellent. I also think the White Star livery suits her very well. Especially in the 20’s when her sheer line was lowered.

In terms of interiors, I absolutely adore the Olympics wood paneled Edwardian decor. I might be a BIT biased, because I have a much better understanding of the Olympics interior and decor thanks to Titanic: Honor and Glory. If I were to go back in time and sail on the Lusitania or Mauretania, I might prefer them, but the pictures can only convey so much to me now. I’ve also always preferred the Edwardian decor to the Art Deco decor on ships like the Normandie. Don’t get me wrong, the Normandie was gorgeous, but her interiors almost give me the vibe of an art museum. Cold, imposing, almost sterile. Not exactly a place I’d like to live for a week. The Queen Mary is much better in this regard, feeling much more warm and inviting, but I still just overall prefer the pre war decor of ocean liners. Olympic just happens to be my favorite.

In terms of speed, everyone makes a very big deal about how the Olympic class was just too slow to take the blue riband from the Lusitania class, but the Olympic wasn’t exactly slow either. With an initial service speed of 21 knots, and a maximum recorded speed of 24 knots, she was still very fast compared to most liners of her day, especially compared to the Big Four, which could only go between 16 and 18 knots.

However, standing above all else is the Olympics career, which for me, is what makes her stand above the rest.

When the Lusitania was launched, she beat the previous ship in terms of size by 6,969 gross registered tons. When the Olympic was launched, she beat the Lusitania by nearly twice that, being 13,774 gross registered tons larger. (For reference, The Kaiserin Auguste Victoria was 24,581 GRT, The Lusitania was 31,550 GRT, and the Olympic was 45,324 GRT). At the time of her launch, she was the largest man made moving object ever built, by far. Shortly thereafter she suffered a collision with the HMS Hawke, but survived easily thanks to her watertight compartments. After the sinking of her sister, the Titanic, she was withdrawn from service and refit, introducing safety features that made her by far the safest ship afloat. She already was the safest before the refit, but the refit fixed some critical flaws and oversights by adding lifeboats, raising bulkheads, adding an interior second skin to absorb damage (remember this one) and plenty more.

World War I began in 1914, and the Olympic was once again withdrawn from service. This time, she was refit as a troop ship. During the war, Olympic is reported to have carried up to 201,000 troops and other personnel, burning 347,000 tons of coal and traveling about 184,000 miles. She survived TWO encounters with German U-boats. Most ships don't survive one, and in one of these two encounters, the U-Boat didn't survive! The crew of the Olympic spotted the U-Boat and managed to ram and sink it. The Olympic was the only merchant ship to have sunk enemy tonnage during World War 1. Can't say definitively for other wars, but none come to mind. A plaque was placed in one of Olympics first class spaces to commemorate the event. The second encounter went a bit differently. The second U-Boat actually managed to hit Olympic with a torpedo. Luckily it was a dud, and didn't detonate. The torpedo did make a small hole in her hull, but the double hull contained the flooding. The crew of the Olympic didn't know she was hit until she was put in dry dock after the war and they found the hole.

After the war, she repatriated Canadian troops and earned the nickname "Old Reliable". A dance hall was even named after her. She was once again refit, giving her oil fired boilers. This significantly reduced the amount of crew necessary, from (approximately) 350 men to only 50. Also, this change increased her average speed by a 10th of a knot, and significantly reduced the amount of smoke and pollution she created. She could also be completely refueled in a day, rather than a week. Because oil is a liquid, they were actually able to store it in unconventional places like the space between the double hull. This gave Olympic incredible range and fuel capacity compared to her rivals. Throughout the 1920s, she became extremely popular with the rich and famous. This was despite the fact that Olympic was no longer White Star Line's flagship. That title went to the Majestic, originally a German liner, but ceded to the brits as a war reparation. But as I was saying, her popularity with celebrities of the time earned her the nickname of "The Movie Star Liner". By 1934, the effects of the great depression had taken hold. Very few people were traveling. Cunard and White Star were in pretty serious trouble (White Star wasn't just suffering from the great depression, but that's a story for another day). Cunard didn't have enough money to complete the RMS Queen Mary and made an appeal to the government for help. They agreed, but only under the condition that the Cunard line and White Star Line merge. At this point, many Cunard and White Star ships were sold or scrapped to get as much money as possible for the Queen Mary. This includes the 3 remaining ships of the Big Four, and even the Mauretania. The thing that doomed the Olympic was her lack of private bathrooms. Standards for travel and comfort had simply changed too much since 1911, and the Olympic no longer made enough of a profit for Cunard White Star to keep her in service. She was sold for scrap, and by 1936, she was gone.

Anyway, sorry for the huge info dump. Tl;dr - The Olympic is my favorite because of her interesting career. I'm very passionate about the topic. Also, apologies for any inaccuracies. Most of this was from memory, but I made sure to fact-check all the big stuff and the numbers.